How the Census Makes Obama’s Re-Election More Difficult

Jun 21, 2010 10:41 am ET

This column by Peter Brown first appeared on WSJ’s Capital Journal blog.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

The census taker who has been knocking on your door is part of a process that will almost certainly make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to be re-elected in 2012.

Of course, no one knows what the political environment will be in 29 months, but the 2010 Census is certain to change the Electoral College math in a way that will favor the Republicans. Should the president roll up the popular vote majority that he did in 2008, the new scorecard for 2012 won’t make a difference come Election Day.

But if the election is as close as it was in 2000 and 2004, the changes that will come because of the population redistribution captured by the decennial national head count could be a big deal.

The Constitution requires that every 10 years the government count Americans. That data is used to distribute federal largess – as the Census TV ads stress. But it is also used to determine how many of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are allotted to each state.

The process of redrawing the congressional maps in each state is done by some combination of the state legislature and governor. In states where either the Democrats or Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governorship, the maps reflect the most brutal kind of political partisanship. In those states with split control, the redistricting fights have historically been the ultimate game of “Let’s Make a Deal.”

But, no matter how the congressional district maps are drawn, the number of a state’s Electoral College votes is equal to its number of members of the U.S. House and its two U.S. senators.

In the last half-century, the nation’s internal population migration from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and Southwest as well as the Pacific Coast has resulted in considerable changes in the Electoral College math.